Studio/Office Inspiration

I know I should be busy putting "everything in it's place" but I am so excited about the decorating portion of my office that I had to take a moment to share some other work spaces that have inspired me.

I'm sure no one would expect The Farm Chicks home office to be anything less then absolutley darling, full of bright colors and cute prints. I really love some of their great ideas for labeling and organizing.

Heather Bullard has a great home studio full of trinkets, baubles and cute little accesories. I'm afraid I'd be too distracted in this space admiring all the pretty things and never get anything done though!

Lola B's office is so tranquil and calming. I can certainly see myself spending a lot of time sitting in that gorgeous chair of hers flipping through Country Living magazines with a good cup of coffee in hand.

I'd have to say that my overall favorite space though is by Kim at Dear Daisy Cottage. You can view some of her office pictures here. I absolutley love everything she has done! The colors, the patterns, the style is so me and she even has a cup with my intial on it! Forget redoing my office I think I'll just move in there. :0)

Do you have a space that inspires? Would love to see it...leave a link and I'll be sure to check it out.

Phase 2 - The Purge

Well it has taken me two long evenings to dig my way through the mess in my soon to be studio/office. After removing most everything from the room I was glad to see it was much bigger then I remembered and believe it or not I had a small desk, chair and rug underneath it all.

I was suprised at a lot of the little things I found along the way and said to myself many times "so that's where this has been hiding", "hmmm...what does this belong to?","I kept this why?" Needless to say I had a number of things to throw out, many neat items to add to my annual spring garage sale and a lot of organizing to begin. I am resisiting the urge to start decorating so instead I now begin what is to me the most difficult part: Phase 3 - A Place for Everything and Everything in it's Place.

Phase 1 - Admit Weakness

It is now 24 days in to the new year and it's about time I started putting some of my 2009 goals into action. Near the top of my list was tackling my overwhelmingly cluttered spare room. When I first stepped out to try running my own business I had high aspirations of turning my second bedroom into an insprational space full of the things I loved, projects I was working on and a very organized space to get things done. Ha ha ha! How quickly necessity of everyday life turned this dream into the dumping grounds for everything I wanted to hide when friends or family were stopping by. They say that admitting weakness is half the battle so in an attempt to start off on the right foot here is my confession:

So it wasn't quite a verbal confession but if a picture is truly worth a thousand words...need I say more? Seriously it's such a disaster!!! Tons of amazingly cool vintage things, fabrics, projects, etc are floating around in this mess but who would know?! And who knew someone who could be so super organized at her former places of employment could let her own office look this way...goes to show how much discipline it takes to work for yourself!

Be sure to check back later for Phase 2 - "The Purge."

Sew Much Fun

After 10 years of sewing projects on my ever so lovely discolored beige Singer sewing machine I was elated to recieve a Singer Confidence 7467 (which by the way is recommended by none other then Martha Stewart)for Christmas!!! I was very grateful for my first Singer that was passed on to me from a friend's Grandma and that vintage model has served me well or at least that's what I thought until I whipped out my new machine and started on a project. I can't believe I put up with such sloppy stitches for so long!!! And now I have so many other stitching options to choose from on top of the new ease of bobbin and needle threading. I have so many projects lined up that I wasn't sure where to start. Since I was in need of an additional gift for a cousin of mine and the weather outside was frightful I decided to head in that direction. After digging through my piles of spare fabric pieces I somehow ended up with this cute little satchel. I wanted to keep it pretty simple with vintage burlap and the embelishment of her intial in a fun floral print. I added some simple vintage buttons at the handles ends and tried out the hand crossstitch stictch on my machine. Of course there's things I would change if I were to make it again...like adding a pocket to the back...but overall I think it's pretty cute. Here's hoping she thinks so as well!

Christmas Time is Here!

It's a winer wonderland outside my house and I'm hoping for that White Christmas everyone is currently singing about. The freeway and roads near my house are so quiet and if I try hard enough I can almost imagine what it would be like to live away from the city...well almost. I just love the ground all covered in white though and will enjoy it while it lasts.

Last year I was so good about getting my Christmas decorations up early and even had all my Christmas presents purchased, wrapped and under the tree at least two weeks ahead of time. This year however I've not been quite that organized. I have no plans of company at my house this year so I guess I was a bit lazy. I still enjoy setting out some of my pretty things and decorating the tree just to satisfy the Christmas decorating urge.

There's a large thrift store not far from my house that I stop by often. They always have random vintage Christmas items for sale all year round so I've been collecting vintage bulbs this past 8 months. I had not realized how many I had until I pulled out all the boxes. Much to my suprise I was able to cover my whole tree. The ornaments tend to lose their tops and not wanting to waste them I had the idea to turn them upside down on top of some of my lights. It is a subtle effect but very pretty as you can sort of see in the pics below.



A couple other spaces in my house got added Christmas decor as well but I kept it pretty simple.

My parents's puppies even stopped by to help with the Christmas decorating but as you can see they were not of much use except for being pretty cute! :0)



Well I have a wrapping paper mess to clean up so I best get to it.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!!!

Doing a New Thing

Well after a few months of testing the waters of what self employment might look like I've discovered a number of things I do not want to do and a number of things I enjoy. While I do have fun finding cool vintage things at garage sales, thrift stores and the like I really want to focus more of my efforts into bringing some of my own ideas into reality. Fear has held me back quite a bit in making this happen but I've decided that the new year is going to be about taking risks and trusting God to take care of the little things. This blog is where I will share some of my ideas, new things I am working on and vintage items I have discovered as well as the experiences in this adventure they call self employment. Taking the leap ~ kt

Ecclesiastes 11:4-6